


The Ones Who Had Loved Him the Most

by Dirade



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Hurt No Comfort, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, i'M SAD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 05:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19222423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dirade/pseuds/Dirade
Summary: !!ENDGAME SPOILERS!!Steve tells Bucky that he's leaving.





	The Ones Who Had Loved Him the Most

**Author's Note:**

> So I don't love how this turned out, but I just have so many feelings. So: suffering.  
> Title is a reference to [this song.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTa1jHk1Lxc) RIP GoT.   
> This can be read as Stucky or platonic besties.   
> Obviously I have a lot of Endgame Feelings, but [this post](https://twitter.com/goatmanbucky/status/1135651982176411653) specifically, for some reason over literally the hundreds of other posts I've seen, just sent me. So.  
> Anyway, enjoy! And by that I mean cry

“I love you,” Steve says. 

 

Bucky looks at the thin line of his mouth and the furrow of his brow. He already knows that he won’t see it again. 

 

“But this is it. We did it. We won.” Relief seeps into Steve’s voice, and the crease beneath his brows softens. “This is the end of the line.” 

 

Those words brought him back, once. Now they banish him again. Bucky lets frost creep over his mind. 

 

“I want to go back, Buck. And now I finally can. I’ve waited for so long, but I don’t think I belong here anymore.” 

 

Steve has waited a long time. Bucky knows that. Steve’s been grieving for five years. 

 

Time has been more merciful to Bucky. Like Steve, he lost decades to the ice. He remembers bits and pieces of the time after the fall of Hydra, but it blurs into nonexistence until Steve appears at his door. Bucky doesn’t know how long they run for, but wherever they go, the fight seems to follow, just like it always has. 

 

Steve takes him to Wakanda and tells him that he’ll be safe. He sleeps for a long time. When he wakes up, he waits for them to give him a gun. It’s been a long time since he’s been woken up for something other than a mission. Instead, they give him a farm. At first, he thinks it’s a strange mission, but as the months wear on and he becomes more man and less machine, he begins to believe that the war might be over. 

 

Bucky never thought he would come back from the war. Steve was the only one left that he loved, and Steve could handle himself. Stupid and reckless he may have been, but Bucky knew that nothing was going to stomp out that fire that raged in that pale, bony body. Bucky is right. Steve doesn’t die and the war doesn’t end. Every time he wakes up for the next 70 years, he keeps fighting the war. 

 

But this time is different. He raises goats. Life grows in death’s place. In the sunlight, it’s easier to believe that the war might be over. Five months later, T’challa brings Bucky the weapon he was expecting when he first woke up. The war isn’t over. Bucky doesn’t know why he thought otherwise. But he sees Steve again, and a flicker of why he started fighting in the first place burns in Bucky’s heart. He’s meant to be a soldier. He might have been happy hauling bales and herding goats for the rest of his life, but the weight of a gun is familiar in his hands. 

 

They fight, side by side, just like they always have. This is a new kind of war, and yet it’s the same as it’s always been. Some blood is blue, some is black, and some is red, but it all sticks to his skin in the same way. 

 

And then… and then. Bucky feels himself leaving. His hand turns to ash. “Steve?” He hopes that there isn’t a hell. He hopes that there is nothing at all. 

 

And then he’s back. They fight and they win, but the cost is high. In the aftermath, someone tells him it’s been five years, that he’s been asleep - gone - for  _ five years _ . 

 

For Bucky, it’s been months since Steve offered him salvation. It’s been months since Steve promised they’d be together till the end of the line. For Steve it’s been years. Steve, who found love so long ago, who’s still the same man he was when he was just a skinny punk without self-preservation instincts, Steve, who wants to say goodbye. 

 

“I promised Peggy one last dance. I can finally do it. This is the life I was meant for, the life I thought I’d lost forever.” Steve’s eyes glitter with tears, an incredulous smile gracing his face. He’s so happy. Maybe happier than he’s been since he woke up from the ice. Bucky can’t take that away from him. Bucky can’t say that even with a time machine, he can never go back, that Hydra gouged out the Bucky he used to be in a way that not even the Infinity Stones can fix. There’s nothing for him to return to, anyway. Steve was all he had. Steve has a chance, though. A chance to get back everything he’s lost, everything he ever wanted. 

 

So when Steve asks, “You’ll be alright without me, won’t you, Buck? It’s not like I’ll even really be gone. Not in this time, anyway,” the Asset nods back. Betrayal aches sharp and cold and deep through Bucky’s heart, so he pulls back and lets the smooth sensation of the Asset sink into his skin. 

 

“But the world still needs Captain America…” Steve reaches for his shield. 

 

“No,” Bucky says, and it is Bucky, resurfacing for just long enough to shake his head before retreating back into the frost. Bucky doesn’t want to fight anymore. Bucky wants to rest. He knows he can’t rest until he wipes all the red from his ledger. The war will never end. There’s not enough time in this world or the next to wash the blood from his hands. But he wishes, in some private, painful part of himself, that someone would just tell him that he could finally, finally rest. 

 

If the Asset could want things, he might wish for the same. 

 

Steve blinks at him in surprise for a moment, but leaves the shield where it is. “I… thought you might say something like that,” he starts, haltingly. As he continues his voice gains power again, confidence coming back to his posture. “My point still stands, though. If you’re not ready for it, I want to give it to Sam,” he says with an air of certainty, before that too dissipates. “Do you think… do you think you can help him? Like you helped me? He’s going to need you.” 

 

The Asset nods. Of course Sam will need help. The war is never going to end. Someone needs to fight it, and Bucky knew he was never going to come back home. Whether he’s Bucky, the Asset, or some other shapeless shell, he’ll always be a soldier. 

 

“You’ll be okay, Buck,” Steve whispers. “We’re free now.” He wraps the Asset in a hug. 

 

The Asset memorizes the shape of him before letting go. He’s clung to Steve for so long, but he knows it’s finally time to let go. As Steve turns away, the Asset lets out the faintest hint of a whisper. “Goodbye, Stevie.” 

 

And as Steve vanishes, so does Bucky Barnes. 

**Author's Note:**

> I love Bucky Barnes 3000 and I'm sorry.


End file.
